15 Minutes Raw, Part 2

"She wants to be a Bollywood dancer," I said. "She wants to dance in the Indian style while prancing about colorful sets built on a backlot in India."

"Have you mentioned to her that she's not exactly their type?" said Mark, sipping at his coffee.

"I told her as much," I said, "and I got the standard 'you don't care about my dreams' speech again."

"Third time this month."

"Fourth. I didn't mention the one about getting her collage work displayed in the Louvre."

"She actually thought she could do that?"

"Seriously."

"I thought you were joking when you said she wanted to submit her work."

"Nope. She had it all packed up and everything."

Mark chuckled, stirring another packet of sweetener into his coffee. "What is she smoking and where can I get some?"

"Grateful Meds," I said, "and if your doctor will write you a note, they'll sell to you."

"I love California," said Mark, and took another sip.

"Migraines. She gets these migraines and she's tried pretty much every over-the-counter remedy and the doctor says marijuana can help, so he wrote her a note for it."

"Wild."

"I know," I said, taking a bite of my turnover. "First doctor she tried gave it to her."

"Really? I never knew about the migraines back in college."

"Probably because she never mentioned them until she moved to California. As far as I know, she never actually had them."

"Like I said, I love California."

"So finally I told her, 'Sure. I'll support you in whatever it is you want to do. If you want to take the lessons from that storefront on La Brea, I'll give you some money for it. Just take me to India when you go.' And she said that she could do without my sarcasm."

"Well, sarcasm isn't very attractive," said Mark.

"I wasn't being sarcastic."

"I would have been."

"But I'm not," I said. "She's got a point. She's got dreams, and she wants to follow them. Who am I to tell her no?"

"No reason to pay for the lessons."

"Maybe she's finally found her calling. Maybe this'll be it."

"Yeah," said Mark. "That's what you said about the pottery classes, too. remember? She was going to move to Honolulu and make clay with basaltic sand mixed into it and do hand-thrown pottery for tourists?"

"Who hasn't wanted to go to Hawaii?" I said.

"And then there was the time she was convinced that she could learn to play the pan pipes and folk venues all over California would hire her to play."

"It's not a sound you hear much any more."

"You're damn right it's a sound you don't hear much any more," said Mark. "And there's a good reason for that. Nobody likes to hear the pan pipes. Only people with names like Zamfir play pan pipes. It's not a solo instrument - it's like a secondary back-up instrument on Graceland-era Paul Simon. Nobody takes the instrument seriously."

"Sure," I said. "Point out the failures."

"Point out one thing she's stuck with," said Mark. "One thing. Seriously. I want to know one thing she's stuck with for more than two weeks at a time."

"Me," I said. "She stuck with me."

"No," said Mark. "You stuck with her."

"Same difference."

"I don't think you realize what you're dealing with," said Mark, sliding his coffee to the side and thumping the table with his index finger. "Let me break it down for you. You can't say you're actually dating her because she doesn't like to be thought of as your girlfriend. She hangs out all night at gallery openings and goes to hotel rooms with the artists. She's always telling anybody who'll listen all about the guy that she snogged at the last godforsaken Woodstock rip-off. And you're the one who's been pursuing this, not her."

"Point taken," I said. "But there are other things she's stuck with."

"For more than two weeks at a time?"

"Sure."

"Name one."

"The Caravan."

"That's a car. You don't get to count that. Nobody can just haul off and buy a new car because they're tired of it."

"But see? She stuck with it."

"Is she tired of it?"

"Yes."

"I rest my case," said Mark.

"All right," I said. "But maybe this time--"

"Maybe nothing," said Mark. "Two weeks and she wouldn't be going back again."

"You're a cynic, Mark. You're a bastard who doesn't believe in the inherent goodness of man."

"And that's why I still have my sanity," said Mark, taking a deep drink of his coffee.